


Vilomah

by TinyFuryCloud



Series: Vilomah [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Character Analysis, Character Study, Civil War Fix-It, Drabble, Ficlet, Ficlet Collection, First Love, First Time, Fix-It, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Sharing a Bed, Slam Poetry, bed sharing, my boys are trying to forgive each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-06
Updated: 2019-02-13
Packaged: 2019-10-23 05:17:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 8,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17677124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TinyFuryCloud/pseuds/TinyFuryCloud
Summary: Ficlet collection of Tony and Steve attempting, failing, falling apart in the aftermath of that cold night in Siberia.Composed of several journaling attempts, To Do lists, slam poetry, and prose.There will be a sequel series (several, in fact) :D Stay tuned





	1. Altschmerz

**Author's Note:**

> vilomah (n): against the natural order

**_altschmerz (n):_ **weariness with the same old issues that you've always had -- the same anxieties you've been gnawing on for years

 

“God, it's hot,” Tony mutters. He cants his head back, exposing the long column of his throat, and suddenly, desperately, Steve wants to grab him by the lapels of his too-expensive suit and do...do _something_ , anything. God knows what.

Steve wonders what he's doing here. He wonders why Tony brought him here, today, of all days. On the anniversary of the car crash, with Bucky in the compound and Steve not-exactly on speaking terms with Tony, certainly not after the incident in the gyms last week.

Tony looks at him, eyes inscrutable. Leans forward, smelling of dirt and damp things, and rasps, "Forgiveness is a fickle thing, isn't it, Cap?"

It's the heat, it has to be, or the walls of the graveyard closing in around him, or maybe the fact that he's wearing Tony's sunglasses – _Tony's_ sunglasses, for God's sake – because it's all too much, too loud, and his pulse is hammering a tattoo in his ribcage and he just—it's too much.

Shield coming down—

The crack—

Then, suddenly, like he's floated away from his own body, a ghost in a graveyard: the curve of an icy road, the sound of snow on metal, Maria Carbonelli's choked-out words ( _Howard!_ ) and Howard Stark's love of the bottle ( _Have a drink, boy, you want to grow up to be a man, don't you?)._

The shield shattering, something coming loose inside him, the moment he would forever look back upon as immutable in its debauchery of something called friendship.

He's boiling in his own skin, the dead underfoot, and still he continues to stare at Tony, sunglasses-to-sunglasses, and it's affecting his brain. It's a law, or it should be a law, that people shouldn't look into someone else's eyes and see their own warped image leering back at them.

_Forgiveness is a fickle thing._


	2. Rubatosis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tony's a mess and has some pretty dark thoughts; read with caution <3

**_rubatosis (n):_** the unsettling awareness of your own heartbeat

  
  
Tony is drunk the day after the graveyard visit, to the surprise of no one, and he's thinking of Howard, as he tends to on days like these.

_(Drink, up, boy, don't you want to be a man?)_

_(Now, Steve Rogers, you could do something to learn from him. He was a better man than all of us, and far too brilliant to have left us like he did.)_

"I should tell you, shouldn't I, Cap?" Tony's suddenly saying, or maybe he's been talking for a long time, because his feet hurt and Steve's grip on his coffee mug looks brittle. "I should tell you. I should...I mean, you came to their grave, you should....but—"

"Tony. Tell me," Steve demands, clearly having no idea what Tony is on about, but at least he's talking to him, and this is better than nothing at all.

Tony sways. The walls of the compound tilt one way, then the other. "You won't like it."

"Hm." Steve's eyes are blue slashes. He regards him impressively, though Tony notes the tic in his jaw that he's unable to suppress. It's funny how he's calm when Tony is off-kilter, and off-kilter while Tony is calm, like only one of them has permission to panic at any given time. "Don't like being kept in the dark either, and I thought we were...past that now."

Past secrets? Tony barks a laugh. Oh, how rich.

_Forgiveness is a fickle thing._

He glances away, but he can't seem to stop himself from looking back at Steve. It's been so long.

Steve arches one brow, eyes locked on Tony's, and he's forgotten what he was going to say, there's nothing to say, because isn't it there in his eyes, in his every breath, in the late nights when Barnes and Steve are keeping silent watch over the other's nightmares and Tony keeps away. He wonders if he shares Steve's dreams, or his nightmares. He hopes it's his nightmares -- he hopes they're suffering together, the way they always have.

"Tony?"

"Drink your coffee," Tony mutters. "I'll—I'm—"

Steve continues to sip his coffee without even a twist of his mouth, despite the fact that DUM-E made the slop and possibly slipped poison in it. He wonders what it'd be like to watch Steve die, bleed out on the nice marble floors, and know that this time it isn't exactly his fault.

The man's died a thousand deaths in Tony's dreams, and all by his hand, as it should be.

Steve tilts his head to one side, oddly bird-like. "If you don't tell me, if it's important and we repeat this again—"

"Okay, Captain Hypocrite—"

“—then we're never going anywhere with this whole..." His eyebrows pinch together. "With whatever this is, and it would be best for all of us if I leave—"

"I forgive you."

Steve's mouth snaps shut.

"Not for Siberia, exactly," Tony continues before he can shove his words back down his throat and choke on the ashes. "For being Howard's favorite."

There's a crawling feeling inside Tony's chest in the echoing silence; he’s suddenly aware of his heartbeat in his fragile ribcage, and he thinks three things at once: he's lying, Clint is probably in the vents listening, and one day, maybe he can forgive Steve while he's sober.

“That wasn’t funny,” Steve says, and slams the mug down on the coffee table separating them. His voice has lowered below the decibel level for humans, somewhere between a growl and a hiss that slithers into Tony's consciousness and awakens him to a fourth truth:

“It wasn’t meant to be funny."

“Then you’re a complete—complete _bastard_ ," Steve spits out, "and you should take that back.”

"Language," Tony says mildly, and barks another laugh, because there it is, there’s the anger and not the passive pain in his blue eyes and he suddenly, desperately wants Steve to punch him in the face. “See, I told you, you wouldn’t like it. You didn’t listen. Besides, I thought you wanted this?”

Steve's mouth works. Not the way it does when he's angry, curiously enough. He's one of those words that sounds sillier than they should have: flabbergasted, gob-smacked. Bewildered. Then, suddenly and all at once: pained.

“You didn’t listen,” Tony says, and he’s not sure what exactly he’s talking about. “So you deserve to hear that—"

“Clint's in the vents," Steve finally bites out. "And you're going to bed to sleep this off now.”

"Aren't we going to talk about my forgiveness?" Tony demands, his stomach roiling, and hm, maybe he shouldn't have drank this much. Pepper was going to murder him. Maybe she could murder Steve too, and then place their bodies in a nice shallow grave together, and pour ice on top. No, not ice -- snow, and a metal coffin for them both, the way his parents died. "I have thousands of heirlooms, things of yours, a shrine to you from my father, I want to show them to you and I want to _forgive_ you, Cap. Don’t you want that, don’t you _crave_ that? Hey, where are you going?"

Steve's snatched up his sketchbook from the table. When Tony fails to comprehend what’s going on exactly, Steve snatches up his hand as well and pulls him up off the end of the lab bench.

Tony weaves their fingers together. Steve cuts off the circulation in his hand.

It's glorious.

He pretends not to remember anything when he wakes up the next morning in his own bed, under the covers.


	3. Enouement

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the Gym Incident that Steve mentioned in Ch 1 when he was wondering why Tony brought him to his parents' grave on the anniversary of their death. Angst abounds ooops. The comfort will come soon, my loves <3 Hang in there.

_**énouement (n):**_  the bittersweetness of having arrived in the future, seeing how things turn out, but not being able to tell your past self

 

The Incident Last Week:

It happens when they’re sparring in the gym. Steve’s this close to snapping because Tony won’t stop _pushing_ him, taunting him _(too slow, Capsicle, too; is there anything special about you?)_ , and he can’t.

He just can’t take it, hearing the words from someone who looks like a blurred copy of Howard, especially now, when he’s thinking of the anniversary of his death coming up next week…he just—

Tony dodges his punch and spits, “Did everything special about you and Barnes come out of a bottle?”

“Speaking of bottles,” Steve pants. “how do you like spending your life inside one?”

Tony’s face-plate flips upward, and he releases Steve from the death-hold. “ _What_ did you say?”

Steve flexes his fists, and the blood is roaring in his ears, and God, he’s supposed to be trying to fix things here, but what he says instead of _sorry_ is: “It’s not like I haven’t seen the media talk about your problem, not like I haven’t seen you drunk off your ass. Oh, _oops._ Language, am I right? Rich, coming from you, Stark. Is that why Pepper left you—”

“ _Shut up_.” His face turns frighteningly hard, leeched of any color. “Shut your damned mouth.”

He won’t stop, or maybe can’t. “Did she—”

Tony seizes him by his wrists, pressing hard enough to draw pain. They stare into each other’s eyes for a half-second, and then Tony makes a whip-crack movement and spins, his hands, sheathed by the repulsors, slam him back, back, back, and his eyes are pale, lips drawn back.

He claws at Tony, fighting with a wildness that makes them tumble back onto the mats. Then Tony’s straddling his legs, pinning him down, and his gaze roves over Steve, movements fluid and animal, his repulsors aimed at Steve’s chest.

Steve sees how this is going to end: in a lot of pain, or worse.

Like before, like that cold night in Siberia, the shield slamming down, again, again, again—

Steve finds his breath. “This, again? You _enjoy_ being the bully, don’t you? Go on, then. I don’t even have the shield. Go on. _Try me._ ”

Blood is rushing serpentine through his veins, pounding in his head, and all he can think is that if Tony makes the move, he’ll choke him, he will, the same way he does in his nightmares since Siberia.

Tony shakes his head once, twice, as if dislodging a thought, and spits, “You get off on this, don’t you, Cap? You say you fight for the little guys, but you haven’t been anything but the biggest guy in the room in seventy years. _Coward._ ”

Steve stares up at him, mouthing opening, closing. He’s right.

_Coward._

It turns silent, a vortex of sound. Steve’s heart beats, one two three, one two three. There’s only the rasps of their breath, rattling in the space between them. Then Tony’s lips ease from their snarl, and he looks almost human again.

_Coward._

“Let. Go. Of me,” Steve chokes. Tony doesn’t seem to hear him.

_Coward._

The dull roar in Steve’s ears rises, screaming, shouting, begging to be released. He could easily break Tony’s neck, even in the suit, crush the metal between his hands, kill him with half a thought— “ _Let go of me._ ”

Tony releases him abruptly, and he hurtles to his feet, bouncing lightly on the sparring mat. The light blaring overhead leaves Tony’s face in shadow so that all he can see is the scattering of light in his brown hair, the glint of his eyes. Then Tony laughs, dry, rough loathing.

“And I’m the monster now, aren’t I, Cap? The monster with the bottle, my father re-made. Oh, yes, the man you worship so very much.”

Howard. The monster with the bottle, re-made?

_Coward._

As if from far away, he hears himself say, “You’re not a monster. And neither was Howard. You look alike, but Howard was—”

“Your _friend_?” Tony asks, and his voice goes low and dangerous. The curve of Tony’s mouth turns savage. “Is that right? Well, then I want you to remember this moment, just like you remember Siberia, just like you remember Father dearest. Because there will again come a day when you are _choking_ on the pieces of myself that I rammed so hard into your heart that it tastes like my mouth. And that day” – he laughs – “that day, all I want you to see is Howard Stark.” He takes one step forward and Steve, Steve actually steps back in some odd parody of a dance. “I want you to see your friend and see how it feels to be betrayed.”

“Tony—”

“You know how everyone will see this?” Tony demands, and he beats his fist against his arc reactor, eyes glittering. “What _Dad_ said, what the media says about you? Yeah, I know what they say about me. That I am an addict and a nightmare and unlike my brilliant father who saved millions of people, I destroy everyone around me, and for all the death I have inflicted I will one day meet my fate. But Captain America!” He throws his arms up in the air, jaw gritted. “A paragon of excellence! The greatest man he ever knew, Dad said. God. _Look_ at you.”

A schism yawns open within Steve.

Look at him, indeed. Just a kid from Brooklyn, really.

God, if he could tell himself seventy years ago what the future was like, what _he_ was like…

He steps back, out of swiping range, and says, hearing his words from far away, “Don’t worry. Centuries from now, they’ll love you. _I_ manipulated you. _I_ kept secrets from you. And yes, you are right. I’m a coward. God only knows what Howard saw.”

Tony blinks, mouth opening, then snapping shut. His body is tense, like he’s expecting to be punched and is unsure what happens next in this game.

Without waiting for a response, Steve walks out of the gym, leaving his words hanging in the dark between them.


	4. Hiraeth

_**hiraeth (n):**_  a homesickness for a home to which you cannot return, a home which maybe never was; the nostalgia, the yearning, the grief for the lost places of your past

 

An Excerpt From Steve's Sketchbook:  
  
he held his repulsors / to my heart / warding me off / like i am the monster and i  
  
froze   
  
crashed into the ice / went back to the cold where I was born / i was once his friend but / now he's made me  
  
a traitor  
  
a weapon, nothing more / a source of intel / valuable but not needed / not wanted / can't be wanted / when you crushed his father's shield in his heart / and twisted and said / he's my friend, well  
  
so was i  
  
but nothing matters now / nothing / nothing / nothing / nothing / for while we live in the same house, i live under the ice and / he lives in a bottle and i   
  
i want to be dirt again / want to be dust again / want to be myself again / want to be nothing again / cause i'm just  
  
a kid from brooklyn


	5. Kuebiko

_**kuebiko (n):**_  a state of exhaustion inspired by acts of senseless violence

An Excerpt from Tony’s To Do List, or Outline of A Potential Lab Report On The Destruction of A Thing Called Friendship

  * introduction 
    1. we fought in siberia
    2. but it wasn’t really _we_
      1. it was barnes and cap 
        1. barnes: killed my parents
        2. cap: idolized dad, imagine that
      2. it was me 
        1. just me 
          1. tony stark: genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist  
  



  * during siberia 
    1. i’m breathing, i’m choking
    2. i don’t know where it went wrong 
      1. well, maybe i do
      2. let’s pretend i don’t, though, it’s more fun that way  
  



  * after siberia 
    1. i’m getting better. it's not better the way you might think. it’s strange and awful and i taste blood in my mouth, but it’s what i have now
    2. rhodey looks at me like i might break
    3. i wonder if he’s my friend 
      1. of course he is
      2. right?  
  



  * now that steve and barnes are back at the compound 
    1. natasha looks at me and it’s terrifying how much she sees
    2. i’m tired
    3. i’m getting better
    4. i'm drinking poison every day like dad, i’m sleeping 2 hours at a time, i pretend my nightmares are dreams. i’m getting better
    5. he doesn’t think i'm like dad 
      1. but only in the bad ways
      2. i am the drinker in the family
      3. the destroyer
      4. i set everything on fire and call it rain  
  



  * what i feel when i see steve 
    1. i hope he chokes on the pieces of me that i rammed so hard into his throat that everything tastes like my mouth
    2. i want to hurt him 
      1. dream: the two of us in a shallow grave 
        1. maybe pepper and rhodey are there 
          1. pepper: too good for me
        2. me: blood on my fingers like gloves
      2. i want to hurt myself more
      3. i want to know why 
        1. why did you keep the secrets
        2. why did you think i had no right to be angry 
          1. they were my parents
          2. they were awful and cruel and 
            1. _drink, boy, don’t you want to be a man_
          3. i loved them 
            1. i remember dad tinkering on a ford ’58 with me
            2. i remember mom’s laugh when i said something clever
          4. i want to drink until i can’t remember 
            1. why do i fucking remember  
  



  * what is happening to me in my dreams 
    1. i’m under the ice, no, i’m under the soil, it’s me who’s choking
    2. i'm decomposing, rotting away until there’s nothing left but my ashes. and then, only then, do i rebuild  
  

  * who am i now 
    1. i don’t know who i am when i look at the person in the mirror
    2. i want to escape my body
    3. i want to build a suit of armor around the world 
      1. around my friends 
        1. he’s not my friend, though  
  



  * conclusion 
    1. this body isn’t built to hold me
    2. this suit isn’t built to withstand his shield in my heart
    3. this heart isn’t built to beat when he’s around




	6. Kenopsia

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shoutout to @PJCole for the prompt and for all your enthusiasm and beautiful essays about my poetry. You're one of the reasons I love writing poetry for this fandom and I can't thank you enough, not with all the words in the world xx

_**kenopsia (n):**_  the eerie, forlorn atmosphere of a place that is usually bustling with people but is now abandoned and quiet

 

An Excerpt From Steve's Sketchbook:  
  
**stay**

i stay / to watch / us rip our heart

apart

but i cannot complain / this is how it goes / this is all we’re to be / a twisted friendship

_he’s my friend_

with no happy ending / this is how it ends / with a cry and / a scream / shield against iron and / a twist of the knife

_so was i_

you burn down the world and / call it rain / i kill you a thousand times and we are both 

dead

and yet / here you are again / creeping back down my throat / sticking like broken glass

i didn’t know it was i who broke you

 

**go**

i go / remain broken anyway / but you are happier

together

with her / you find someone to love your broken pieces and / i know if i ever had a window / that window is closed / the glass is shattered

_did everything special about you come out of a bottle?_

but when i’m gone / it hurts nonetheless / a phantom of pain / a ghost in my bones / and it’s quiet but the glass cracks underfoot

_speaking of bottles, how do you like spending your life within one?_

and you find someone new / to make suits for and laugh / your laugh / god, your laugh

we are still hurting / we are still wounded, make no mistake / but we are somehow / against all odds

alive

so you stay and / i’ll go

i wish you the happiest of lives


	7. Oubliette

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is written as a direct sequel to Ch 1 and Ch 3, but you're not required to read that to understand this ficlet :)

_**oubliette (n):**_ a dungeon with a door only in the ceiling; a place you put people to forget about them

Tony thinks his blood must be boiling, even before Steve arrives.

They’re at an isolated church so old it has no name. The ruins are hidden away, only the exterior walls clear from satellites that JARVIS pulled up. The roof and floors have long ago collapsed, and what hasn’t rotted away is hidden under rancid saplings and crawling vines. The church is surrounded by a stone wall, broken only by a lych-gate large enough for a coffin and its bearers.

Tony wonders what he’s doing here. He thought they weren’t on speaking terms currently, seeing as the Gym Incident had resulted in a nuclear fallout that neither of them were acknowledging.

Then Steve says quietly, “My mom’s buried here.”

They make no move to follow the trail to the graveyard behind the church. Unlike Tony, who doesn’t tend toward patience, Steve is a regal statue against a crumbling wall: hands folded, ankles folded, eyes shadowed.

Tony opens and closes his fists. The sleeping trees don’t shiver; their shadows are short and they don’t cover him. Sweat beads on his forehead.

“Do you…” he begins at a rasp, and he thinks that this is the first time they’ve spoken to each other since Steve announced they’re going some place.

Like a fool, Tony had followed.

“Do you want to go in?” he manages, and wonders if Steve brought him here because he’d taken Steve to visit Mom and Dad.

He wonders if this is punishment.

“Hm. No,” Steve says, and his blue eyes glitter.

Steve is looking at him with the same gaze he always wears when he looks at him – unnerving, otherworldly, and lasting several more seconds than is comfortable.

Then he says, in an odd, even tone, “Forgiveness isn’t a fickle thing. It’s an attribute of the strong, and a weakness for the coward.”

_Coward._

So this is his punishment.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me,” Steve says, and his voice is still so controlled, so unnatural, “I’m going to visit my mother.”

Tony’s heart hammers like a fist. There’s a gnat sticking to the back of his hand. And then, suddenly, he’s not standing in the church anymore.

It’s the dream, the one he usually has: they’re in a cave.

It’s not Siberia this time. No, it’s sweltering and damp and there Tony is, cutting Steve’s throat open with the shield, watching the dark pool of blood expand beneath his body in a cramped cave in Afghanistan, not caring that Steve is dead.

They’re in a dungeon and the air tastes like mold and stagnant water. His eyes sting. He stares up at the ceiling, where the gates lock them in. They’re not making it out of this alive.

He breathes, once twice thrice. Then he throws the shield, closing his eyes before it rebounds and slices into his chest, cracking the reactor into perfect halves.

Their blood mixes in a violent promise of forever.

Odd.

Steve wasn’t in Afghanistan.

Steve—

Tony wrenches his eyes open. He’s crouching in the dirt, scrabbling like an _animal_ , and suddenly, it’s too much. He rips off his sunglasses, watching it skitter sideways out of his reach.

Steve is nowhere to be found. The trees hanging over the path to the graveyard sways in a breeze that Tony can’t feel.

_Coward._

When did that start? In Afghanistan? Perhaps his dreams aren’t as subtle as he likes to pretend they are. _A big man in a suit of armor. Take that off, and what are you?_

Nothing. He’s nothing. He was nothing before Afghanistan, and after Siberia, he…

He inhales, one two three, one two three, and the world tilts, and he slams his hand against the reactor, once twice thrice, once twice thrice.

“Hngg,” he gasps, and he’s dimly aware of the dirt under his nails as he claws alternatively at his chest and the soil.

 _You’ve ruined everything, you coward,_ a voice says, booming in his ears, and it’s in Steve’s voice, but it’s all wrong, low and mean, Tony’s words whipped back in his face.

He needs the reactor out. Out, right now, _outoutoutoutoutoutpleaseicanttakethisanymoreididntmeanto_ —

Then there’s someone’s hand on his shoulder, and he flinches backward. It’s Steve. Tony tries to breathe, but all he can manage is shallow, irregular gulps of air.

“Are you okay?” Steve demands, and his face is leeched of color, and there’s suddenly two of him. Tony digs his fingers under the reactor plate and the strange feeling clears the world for a moment. “Tony?”

_Tony._

Steve hasn’t called him that since…

God, he really wants a fucking drink right now.

“Get it out,” he rasps. “Get it out get it out get it _out_ —"

“Tony, Tony, stop, it’s a panic attack, you need to—hey, stop—”

Tony hooks his fingernail under the plate and pulls. There’s no pain, not until later – unless he _dies_ now – and so he laughs, and digs at it.

“Don’t lie, Cap. This is what you want, isn’t it?” Tony gasps. “It’s what you want, so tear it out, it’ll be so quick, it’ll—I can’t stand it—I want it out—”

Then Steve’s slams him backwards into the dirt, closing around Tony’s wrists in a vise. Tony makes a noise, like someone’s pinched his heart with a knife through his ribs – strangled, wheezing – and Steve’s saying something, his mouth, it’s moving.

“Please,” he’s begging, and that’s odd too, because Steve doesn’t beg. “Please, don’t do it,” and there’s something shattered in his eyes, but his voice is surprisingly steady. “If you ever cared about our f-friendship, don’t do it. I’ll do whatever you want. You’ll never see me again, if that’s your wish, but _please._ Don’t do this to me.” He looms over Tony, a long shadow blocking out the afternoon sun. He smells like the soil, like he was just moments ago sitting in the dirt, talking to his mother’s corpse. “Don’t do this to me.”

And Tony—Tony stops resisting him until he removes his hands from Tony’s wrists and sits back. “Like you get to demand that of me, Cap. Like you deserve to ask a goddamned thing from me.”

Steve’s eyes, when he looks at him, are desperate, like he’s not sure how they got here. “I—”

“We’re leaving now,” Tony says, his voice hoarse, and scrambles up. The ground tilts to the left. His wrist hurts.

They drive back to the compound in silence.

At the entrance, Steve’s hands clench, once twice thrice, at his sides. He inhales, and says on the jagged exhale, “I can’t—don’t do this. I can’t take another _day_ like this.”

“Then leave,” Tony says. JARVIS is droning on about treating his chest that he can’t quite hear.

He doesn’t wait for Steve’s response. He goes to the workshop, crashes down on it, face turned against the backrest, and he goes to sleep.

He doesn’t dream of anything at all that night.


	8. Selectric

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this will make more sense if you read the previous ficlet chapter, tbh

_**selectric (adj):**_ in the mood to get struck by lightning, to stand in an open field and be singled out and drafted by the universe because of your innate potential to resolve a battle between faceless titans roaring in the sky

 

An Excerpt From Steve's Sketchbook:

it comes to him in a graveyard / in the place where his mother is buried / she must be nothing but ash now and / so he says meaningless words

_i wonder what you’d think of the boy i am now, ma; i’m trying and i don’t know if it’s enough but i hope you’re proud (please be proud); i hope you’re singing wherever you are_

he returns / to see tony / clawing at his chest / _get it out get it out get it out_ / voice rising in a crescendo / and nothing / nothing / nothing / can brace him

_i can’t take another day (another night) like this_

when he sees tony in the sunlight, as the light hits his curls / and he thinks

_oh_

_oh, he’s beautiful_

and at the realization / it is not shock coursing through his veins / it is not lightning and thunder and the world breaking apart / angels don’t sing but the birds do / and he thinks, for a second

_maybe_

except then / the man clawing at his chest / at his heart / _get it out get it out get it out_ / changes his tune and says / _get out get out get out_

_you don’t deserve to ask a goddamn thing from me, cap_


	9. Habromania

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ummmm so tony is really a bit manic in this one and has violent thoughts, pls read with caution and know your limits, my loves <3

**_habromania (n):_** delusions of happiness

Scribbled On The Back Of A DUM-E Blueprint On A Drunk Night (After JARVIS Prompts Tony To Journal About What He’s Feeling)

this isn't a fairytale but let's pretend.  
  
i.  **prologue** : he is strange, too tall, teeth too sharp, the oceans in his eyes too dark. but i am strange too, a boy with an iron backbone. we suit each other  
  
_perfectly.  
_  
ii.  **live** : he's my friend. it's the kind of friendship that makes me want to hide in corners, because everything about me reminds him of dad, i know it does. it's the kind of friendship that makes my bottle shake, the kind that gives me leave to  
  
_pretend._  
  
iii.  **poison** : i choke on ice and barbed wire and roses. mom used to say there was a flower deep inside my lungs, and it needed sunlight to grow. once, whenever he smiled, it was like the sun. now, it is like a shield in my heart -- my heart can't, won't beat when he's around -- and i want to  
  
_scream._  
  
iv.  **resurrection** : i burn it all down. i make him hurt. i die with him every night in my

 _dreams._  
  
v.  **epilogue** : this isn't a fairytale so let's not pretend.

  
  
Instead, let me explain what he's really like, none of this pretty nonsense ( _don't you talk about flowers in your lungs, boy, don't you want to be a man?_ ).

Let me catalogue his weaknesses.  
  
**CRANIUM** : i have no evidence to substantiate this claim but i bet his head feels like a club foot, something he has to drag around like a liability. all blue eyes, all scars, no brakes. brakelines cut. do you know i'll be the one to cut them?  
  
_(do you know i'll be the one to pour the gasoline and light the match?)  
_  
**HIPBONES** : he grips them too tight when he speaks to me, tension coiled in his bones like thick snakes; he pinches his skin, digs his nails in, and i can breathe the manic energy when he's too near, and delight in knowing it's my ghost that haunts him every time he breathes wrong.  
  
_(are you choking on the pieces of me i lodged in your lungs?)  
  
_**RIBCAGE** : his lungs don't have roses in them, unless the thorns are tearing him apart. bruce has informed me he has trouble breathing these days, and it's funny how i know the feeling -- i learned it from you, of course. does it feel like someone's sitting on your chest? does it feel like someone's sitting  _in_  your chest, gathering your bones to make kindle and razing it all to the ground? does it feel like vibranium in your heart, like everything is evacuating your chest and your last thought is, his eyes are like the ocean? or tell me, does it feel like something filling your lungs up, like a balloon?  
  
_(if it's a balloon, did you know that one day, all i'll need is a needle to make it pop, and your bones will shatter?)_  
  
**COLLARBONES** : he may be the most powerful human on this earth, but his collarbones are narrow and it reminds me he is breakable. those bones are matchsticks, and matchsticks have two purposes: they can start a fire, burn it all down, begin anew; they can splinter and leave you under the ice, cold blood leaving your wrists  
  
_(do you know i have nightmares about your fingers on my wrists while you hold me down in the bunker?)  
_  
**WRISTS** : JUST BEND THEM, TWIST THEM, SPIRAL-SNAP THEM WHY DON’T YOU  
  
**FINGERS** : his hands used to pray, little catholic boy in church with his mother, but lately all they're used for is sin -- he kills me every night: fingers wrapped around my throat; shield in my heart; fingers under my skin, flaying me alive; what's made your fingers into snapped crucifixes? was it me, was it my mouth, saying the word  _coward_? i hope it was, rogers, because if you can't handle the truth, then that, more than the secret, is entirely your fault and you deserve to suffer. you deserve paralysis  
  
_(do you think it's me who snapped your spine?)  
_  
**SPINE** : he's never had anything even remotely close to courage (why couldn't you have told me, if you'd just told me -- bucky killed your parents, he was brainwashed, i'm sorry -- we would have been--) and now, i hope he knows what i think of him. do you know i imagine you now, captain america without his shield. i hope you know i'm laughing  
  
_(do you know i'm laughing?)  
_  
**JAW:**  GO AHEAD AND SNAP AT ME, SEE WHAT HAPPENS. YOU’RE USED TO YOUR TEETH SCARING ME BECAUSE THAT HAS BEEN THE ORDER ALL THESE YEARS, YOU, THE LEADER, THE PARAGON OF SOCIETY, BUT THINGS ARE GOING TO CHANGE AROUND HERE. YOU SNARL AT ME AND I’LL USE THE RUSTY PLIERS IN MY TOOLBOX TO PULL YOUR TEETH OUT ONE BY ONE  
_  
(do you know i'm an engineer first, iron man second, and all engineers know how to break the things they once fixed?)  
  
_**TEETH** : let’s see you bite your way out of this one  
  
_but let's pretend, why don't we? it's a fairytale, and there's a happy ending in my dreams:_  
  
we bleed out together in siberia.


	10. Anecdoche

**_anecdoche (n):_** a conversation in which everyone is talking but no one is listening

Despite everything, despite the heartbreak and the misery, there is still a man in this compound who knows what Steve needs when he's wandering the halls at odd hours of the night.

This thought clings to him as he stumbles out of his bedroom, noting that JARVIS has said something and only vaguely registering, "The communal kitchens, Captain Rogers."

His heart beats a rapid tattoo. There was something different in his dreams tonight -- the cold, which has been his bedfellow since he was but a child, but then, suddenly, a hot, slanted mouth over his, sealing away his cries -- and he awoke, sheets twisted around his legs.

Out, he needs out, and quickly now.

And then he rounds the corner and....Tony's there, crouched over a steaming mug of coffee.

He has a journal placed haphazardly on two fingers and he's regarding it with dull curiosity. Does he...does he _journal_?

"Uh," Steve croaks out, thinking two things at once: they haven't spoken since the last drinking episode, and Steve is not equipped to fight right now, cry right now, bleed out right now.

Right now, he's remembering the other Tony -- the one who, when Steve is bare-footed and his ears are half-bleeding from the echoes of gunfire from a lifetime ago, remembers his name.

"Rogers," Tony says neutrally, and there goes the fragile hope.

Since Siberia, since the cold, he is Cap, he is Rogers, he is nothing, nothing, nothing. No, he wants to be nothing again, wants to be dust again, wants to fall apart twice a day and have no one look twice at him.

Except:

"Rogers," Tony says once more, his voice barely a rasp, and Steve’s name sounds different in his mouth. Tony’s suddenly clutching his mug with more alacrity since Steve walked into the room, and isn’t that a tragedy? "You look dead on your feet."

"Hm," Steve hums, daring to inch closer to the small table that looks out of place in the pristine kitchen.

He owes so many people so many apologies, but mostly to Tony and...then, to himself. This body, no matter how conditioned, no matter the blood that pumped through his veins, day in, day out...this body was never meant to bear this kind of hurt.

"Is tonight gonna be a talking night?" Tony wonders, his eyes gleaming, and suddenly, desperately, Steve wants to put his fist through Tony's mouth.

 _Are you lonely?_ those brown eyes taunt.

And, well, he doesn't know what to call his current existence if not loneliness -- he flits through life because he must; musters up the courage (what courage?) to breathe and forge on into battle and lead their fractured team because he must; but when he wakes up every morning, it's all he can do to try to remember his own goddamn name, how it fits in his mouth, to see if it belongs there, if he belongs anymore.

"What're you writing?" is what he finally asks, because that seems safe and this morning, he doesn't want to step on the wire just yet.

"Had a dream," Tony says, and though the words are neutral, there's a weight to them, a reason for them, that Steve can't pin down, "about gods and monsters." His eyes flick towards Steve. "How do you kill a god?"

Well, doesn't that solve the question of what Tony's writing about? "You can't kill God," Steve says, and his mouth tastes bitter.

This feels like a liminal space, this odd camaraderie, gone when the sun rises.

Tony barks a laugh that opens the sky, and Steve is mute, struck with the urge to capture this moment in perpetuity -- the man whose laugh parted the sky, and the sky which swallowed him down whole, because he was too immense to be devoured by anything less than a bite.

"Who still believes in gods?" Tony asks. He cants his head to the side, like a bird, and pins Steve in place with the force of his stare. "Or heaven? It's just a construct made to house humanity's fragile fears of the unknown."

Steve swallows, tries to find a reply.

Tony continues, idly flicking the edges of his journal with the back of a silver ballpoint pen. "If God existed, we wouldn't suffer now, would we, Cap?"

Has Tony always been this talkative at...1am? Or is this...no, it can't be for his benefit, surely. They're always at each other's throats at every other minute of the day.

Except right now, it isn't day. It's a liminal space, and they are free to speak.

_You're a coward, Cap._

_How does it feel to spend your life inside a bottle?_

CowardcowardcowardSPEAKUPROGERSAPOLOGIZEhowlongcanyouhatehim

_We wouldn't suffer._

Steve clears his throat. He can still feel the pressure of that strange mouth against his own in the dreamscape, the burn of an invisible beard, and somehow it compels him to say, "You may not believe in heaven, or God, but if there is life after this one, we will -- all of us, me, you, Nat, Bruce, Clint, Thor -- we will find each other again."

The journal flips open to a page filled with more ink than clear space, and the jagged slashes of the pen on paper resolve into words -- we bleed out together in Siberia.

Then Tony snaps the journal shut, and stands, moving with sphinx-like grace. "Well, then," he says roughly, and their eyes meet -- and hold, "let us pray that perhaps the next time around, we don't make such a mess of the good things, hm?"

And with those words ringing between them, he turns and pads down the hall, clutching his mug in one hand and the aged journal in the other.

Steve blinks. He wonders what just happened.

Then he goes back to bed and stares at his ceiling, wondering just for a moment if Tony was doing the same in his bedroom, the two of them gearing up for war once more when dawn breaks.

  
there is something beautiful in the similarity   
of two people separated   
by age and birth place  
by secrets and truths  
by expectations and time --  
such people cannot be soulmates, you see  
they are too apart to be alike,  
and not even i can hope to be,  
and still  
and still  
there is solace to be found  
in not being so alone  
with feelings such as these  
that ache even as the sun rises   
upon their cold, grateful faces.

 

It's too bad they never speak of these nights during the day.


	11. Mizpah

**_mizpah (n):_** the deep emotional bond between people, especially those separated by distance or death

When Tony goes to sleep, he dreams of three things: Siberia, killing Steve (or alternatively: Steve killing him), or his mother.

Tonight, it is the latter, and he is no mere bystander in the brutal dreamscape. He is Maria Carbonelli, and she is thinking of how she left her son behind with only this parting sentence: “Say something. Or you’ll regret it.”

And now she sits, frigid in the passenger seat, and hears the scratch-scratch of metal dragging along the car hood, stalking near. The car jostles and she sucks in a breath. Maybe Howard’ll stand now, hair tousled, eyes bright and manic as they always were before a discovery.

Maybe. But hope is stupid.

Because it isn’t Howard’s footsteps she hears now.

She knows what is coming.

So she steels her back, swallows the lump in her throat, and refuses to hope.

Snow falls on the windscreen, blocking out the headlights.

A screech. Like metal on metal. It’s barely audible.

The scraping is getting closer. She twists, looks out the rearview window, but it’s covered in snow and she’s blind.

Maria pushes back in her seat and covers her mouth with her hands. Is she going to die? Is she, oh God, oh God she doesn’t want to die, not now, not like this.

The scraping is close, so close, it sounds like, oh God it’s coming from behind her, she’s going to die, she’s going to die, the scraping, that awful sound that makes her ears bleed and it carries death with it, she doesn’t want to go like this, doesn’t want to end this way—

Silence.

Silence.

The sound of snowflakes on metal.

But the car is covered in snow.

This metal is fresh.

Her car door creaks open. It creaks open despite all the times Howard and Tony had tried to oil the thing. She’d liked it that way; it’d reminded her of the way, when she was younger, her parents would refuse to oil the front door – to make it easier to detect an attacker.

Now, she looks right into James Barnes’ hooded face. She does not flinch, she does not cower.

_Do not cry. Do not—_

“Hello,” she says softly. The man looks down his nose at her, his face sallow and shrunken.

“He fought valiantly,” says the man, his voice so low it was like a sibilant hiss. “I’ve been told it’s a trait among Stark men.”

She somehow _smiles_ right in the face of her husband's murderer. “You’ll never find my son.”

She knows what’s coming. She is not ready to die, but that does not matter. She is brave and she is made immortal in its wake.

The Winter Soldier moves in a whip-slash movement and as raises her hand in offense, she is fiercely sending one thought to Tony, her boy, her sweet boy with roses in his lungs, one thought to tide her newly-orphaned baby over:

_You will grow up to be fierce and brilliant and kind, Anthony Stark. When you find who you are without us, darling boy, when you must at some point provide a list of your accomplishments, of which there will be many, do not forget to add that you gave me the kind of happiness that I have never known before you, a sated joy in the shadow of war. Twenty-one years was not enough. Then again, a lifetime would not have been enough. But remember, we are with you wherever you go._

_Thank you for making me brave._

“My son,” Howard had said, Howard, whom had never shown any love for Tony, “are you going to kill him?”

Silence.

“Thank you,” Howard had said. “Good. Is there any chance of letting my wife go?”

The screeching of metal.

“I see.”

Then, the footsteps. First slow, then faster, one two three, one two three.

And now…the hand caressing the column of her throat tightens, and she gasps, sucking in one breath, a second, and lost on the third, rasping try.

Howard can be selfless, she thinks in a daze. He _could_ be. He’d been about to die, but he checked on his family first.

His family.

_Does someone’s good deeds outweigh all the bad they’ve done?_

There’s the clench and groan of metal clasping over her throat in a tight embrace; a squeeze, a twist.

_You must be brave in the face of fear if you wish to make it out alive._

And then something that smells like rusted silver twists, spiral-snaps her neck, and six seconds later, she is dead.

She is still smiling, staring right into death’s eyes, brave, when her end comes.

Tony awakes, and stumbles out of bed to wash the tears away.


	12. Anchorage

**_anchorage (n):_** the desire to hold onto time as it passes, like trying to keep your grip on a rock in the middle of the river, feeling the weight of the current against your chest while your elders float on downstream, calling over the roar of the rapids, "Just let go – it's okay – let go."

An Excerpt From Steve's Sketchbook:

**i wish** / i wish that my mother's grave / could teach

silence / patience / the way to lay gone things / to rest, i

stare / i stare / and when nothing / not even the stars / move, i am left

remembering / looking / at the gaping ground

 

 **we were** / we were begging not to cry / begging not to plead

please / i'd rather be cold with you again / be dust with you again / be nothing again, but

as the tears / began to slip / we would turn away from the ground / look to the sky with a thousand teeth

as if this / could somehow imprison the tears / hold them back / as if the sky could save us / hide us, but

darling / you were always / too immense / too human / too mortal to be hidden

 

 **better than** / better than crying / is anger

isn't it a tragedy / that i can / no longer write about the stars, for

they are too bright / too jagged / and since you cut your edges on them / they try to call you back

beg / plead / try to hang on with shiny teeth but

the moon calls too / and its call is gentle

pulling you in / out / back in again / and, oh

it's a pity / that unlike the tide / unlike you / i cannot simply / go, but

i should have realized / when i leapt from the sky / that you / oh, you

only wished to befriend / the idea of me / shining and svelte

the god your father / thought i was / something

celestial / abstract / distant

 

 **the people** / the people watch us / fall apart

i don't want to scream / hit / bleed you dry

so instead / i am ready to flood / soak / weep into the cracked earth / waiting for a sign that

still there may be peace / even if it is years from now / decades from now / please don't be centuries from now

i don't want to bury you

i am already cursed to watch as friends fall / under the dirt first / maybe

it is all for the best / that we are not friends / maybe it is better

that i am the one left standing / enslaven to Time

not yet buried / can't be buried / how could i / with all the dirt still underneath / my cracked fingernails

waiting to be scraped out

when did i become / groundless

your lungs bloom roses / mine wheeze

my lungs are a flower's / graveyard / blooming / blooming's gone, and

my roots have been / yanked up / spread into / the shape of a constellation / into the shapes of the men we used to be

tell me / what do you make of this star-crossed / tragedy

do you feel death coming / tell me / because i don't know / what that feels like

 

 **we** **are** / we are falling / into our old selves, habits

we thought we left behind, mouths / we swore to forever / forget

amnesia is so convenient

i am walking down the galaxy

that used to be yours

feeling as young / as I have ever been and / I wonder if we can even change

or does the clock simply slip past / not reaching out to touch us / smiting us for / taking all that time

 

 **now** / now, when i awake / i feel curiously / ageless

same as the day / i sat in a bomber plane / perched in the arms of something / built by your father's hands to

rush up into the unknown / into the sky / into the person i thought you were

we observe at each other / i see death in your eyes / you see something else entirely, a disaster coming / danger / danger / danger

please hide in the sky / you say, but

that is the problem with Timelessness / that is the problem for those who do not / shuffle off this mortal coil at

the slightest push / snap / crack—

you don’t feel imminent.


	13. Saudade

**_saudade_** **_(n):_** a nostalgic longing to be near again to something or someone that is distant, or the one that has been loved and then lost

 

4am Journal Found In Steve's Sketchbook: 

we speak of friendship like it's what stitches the world together, and yanking the thread out seems inevitable. but at the end of the day, maybe being his friend was never supposed to tear me apart.

_(he's my friend)_

maybe one day, we become friends through want instead of necessity; desire, not martyrdom; lightness, not the weight that your absence creates in my lungs; laughter, not whatever we call the moment when you put your fist in my mouth and i put my shield in your heart.

_(so was i)_

i am a collection of memories, deaths, lives half-lived and taken too soon while i stood by, frozen in time. but my life is so much greater than a fucking series of tragedies woven together and held tight by a man who cannot, will not, respect me enough to look me in the eye anymore.

_(language, cap)_

i have come to the conclusion, after a war and a half, that maybe i am stronger than the weakness of people who would rather possess me (control me, devastate me) than value me despite my monetary worth.

_(you told me you were my friend, then you took out your wallet)_

maybe friendship is not a zero sum game, maybe friendship is not a war but practice in gratitude. maybe friendship exists where i took it for granted, once upon a time, instead of where i now wish for it to blossom.

_(you have a rose growing in your lungs and i think it's bleeding you dry)_

you called yourself my friend, then we tried to kill each other. i still kill you in my dreams, day in, out, in. i kill the worst parts of you and try in vain to hold onto the rest of you. in the desperation, i realize i find you in mom's spirit, natasha's cool exterior, bruce's understated genius, jarvis' smooth voice, dum-e's dysfunctionality. most of all, i find you in the mirror, with a face that looks so much like me that we may very well be the same person.

_(did everything good about you come out of a bottle, rogers?)_

_(you'd know, since you spend all your time inside one)_

maybe being your friend taught me all the wrong ways so i might one day find the right ways. we function like a seesaw, one soaring only while the other sinks, and that...that is no way to live. maybe being the inverse of what we needed to be is how the universe is forcing us to learn.

_(big man in a suit of armor. take that off and what are you?)_

friends. these are all the ways we weren't such a thing, but this is what you could not, would not teach me, everything i could not comprehend. and at the end of the day, even though I want acceptance like suffering soldiers ached for the redemptive light of heaven to soothe their sins, maybe this is why we fell apart.

_(just a kid from brooklyn)_

maybe the universe ripped you away from me because you failed to teach me what everyone else, especially your vision, borne from your mind, your soul, could. maybe it was clumsy of me to learn of pain before I understood affection. maybe what we need is a break, time to heal our wounded ribcages, scratched up as they are by needles and thorns.

because although your friendship was never meant to tear me apart, it will always exist to one day sew me back together.

_(cause i'm with you, till the end of the line)_

see, you couldn't be my friend back _then_ , but maybe that was the point all along.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There might be more to this little fic collection but we'll see! I kinda like the open-ended melancholy way this ended but I might be persuaded to do more. For now, I'll be focusing on another Stony longfic idea, though :)
> 
> UPDATE 2/15/19: I've decided to add another series continuing on from this one so please subscribe :D 
> 
> Please comment (with prompts, if you like) and leave kudos! I thrive on them!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Vilomah](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17708597) by [jessequicksters](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jessequicksters/pseuds/jessequicksters)




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